Adil Ahmad Haque argues that before attacking, combatants must reasonably believe that the target is a combatant and the gains must be sufficiently great so as to be in compliance with the doing/allowing distinction. I reformulate the threshold as preponderance of the evidence, because (1) reliance on beliefs raises conceptual and pragmatic problems, and (2) this balance appropriately considers the values that should be traded off, while bracketing aggregation of persons. I further argue that including doing/allowing above the threshold is impermissible double-counting, and even if not, it is entitled to little weight when combatants owe each other associative duties.

Citation
Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, Deontological Distinction in War, 129 Ethics 603–624 (2019).
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